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10 Most Powerful Brands in the World

Each year, business valuation consultancy Brand Finance publishes it’s world’s most powerful brands. The survey ranks brands by their monetary value and also calculates the most “powerful” brands – companies whose financial value is most impacted by their branding. Let’s look at the top 10 most powerful brands in the world for 2017.

Of the top 10 most powerful brands compiled by Brand Finance, six of the most valuable companies are technology companies. Lego topped this year’s ranking, while Google came in second, leading the technology sector and overtaking Apple.

Brand Finance’s Methodology

According to their website, Brand Finance defines ‘brand’ as the “Trademark and associated intellectual property (IP) including the word mark and trademark iconography.”

Based on this definition of brand, Brand Finance can then calculate the brand value using the Royalty Relief methodology. From the Brand Finance website, they state that the Royalty Relief methodology, “determines the value a company would be willing to pay to license its brand as it did not own it. This approach involves estimating the future revenues attributable to a brand and calculating a royalty rate that would be charged for the use of the brand.”

BrandFinance’s Royalty Relief Methodology

The Top 10 Most Powerful Brands in the World, Ranked by BrandFinance

Lego

Brand Strength: 92.7Brand Value: $7.5 billion

Google

Brand Strength: 92.1Brand Value: $109.4 billion

Nike

Brand Strength: 92.1Brand Value: $31.7 billion

Ferrari

Brand Strength: 91.9Brand Value: $6.1 billion

Visa

Brand Strength: 91.5Brand Value: $20.6 billion

Disney

Brand Strength: 91.3Brand Value: $34.4 billion

NBC

Brand Strength: 91.3Brand Value: $13.7 billion

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Brand Strength: 90.9Brand Value: $18.5 billion

Johnson & Johnson

Brand Strength: 90.1Brand Value: $9.1 billion

McKinsey & Co.

Brand Strength: 92.7Brand Value: $4.3 billion

Lego’s Rise to the Top

Having grown up with Lego toys, it has been incredible to watch how they have developed and strengthened their brand strategy over the last decade or so. By 2000, the company was facing financial difficulty and their products were not top of mind among parents and children. Fast forward to today (2017) and Lego has constructed a distinctively immersive culture of play that spans from the Lego bricks themselves to video games, movies, websites, social media, and now teaching kids to program and code with their bricks.

While unscientific, I’d argue that building with Lego bricks leads to a healthier, happier child. Combining video games and Lego supercharges the imagination.

When Lego first began licensing, it felt like they were abandoning their own themes, taking the imagination out of play. From my perspective, one of the strengths of Lego was that it developed its own themes (town, castle, pirates, space, etc.). When Lego began introducing licensed sets such as Harry Potter and Star Wars, they were able to bring their product to the forefront and integrate into the lives of their ideal audience. Kids who love Harry Potter and Star Wars would welcome Lego sets of those and allow them to expand their level of play.

For several years, Lego was seen as the toy that many people knew, but few talked about. Now, Lego is even more of a household name that has found a strategy that allows them to provide immediacy, personalization, authenticity, and accessibility to their customers.

What’s Your Take?

What’s been your experience with Lego? Are you surprised to see them as the number one most powerful brand for 2017? Who do you think will win out in 2018? Leave a comment below or connect with me via Facebook or Twitter.